


Setebos

by noun



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cults, Alternative Universe - FBI, F/M, New England Pastiche, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:35:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27850974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noun/pseuds/noun
Summary: Agent Emily Kaldwin’s mentor, Billie Lurk, vanishes after a visit to an isolated New England town. Dealing with uncooperative locals and odd goings-on, Emily and her partner, Alexi Mayhew, try to solve the mystery of her disappearance, unaware they’re facing the same fate.
Relationships: Emily Kaldwin & Alexi Mayhew, Emily Kaldwin/The Outsider
Comments: 9
Kudos: 11





	1. Day One

**Author's Note:**

> I have absolutely gotten details about the FBI procedure/lingo/whatever wrong. Mea culpa.
> 
> Chapters once a week on Wednesdays until we're through.

The SUV bounces as they roll off the ferry, Alexi cursing as she slams her head into the roof and spills the lukewarm remains of the Tim Horton’s coffee onto her hand. It doesn’t burn, but it does stain the cuff of Alexi’s shirt.

“Shit,” her partner mutters, bending for the discarded paper bag on the floor, blotting at the wet spot with a damp and rapidly disintegrating napkin.

Emily glances over briefly, then refocuses on the dock. “Watch out,” she says, and Alexi glances up to see where the poured cement changes to asphalt as the real road begins, and claps her hand over the cup before it can slosh over a second time.

As Alexi continues to mutter and wipe at her hands, Emily speeds up, climbing the switchbacks of the bluffs up to the town. There’s a picturesque little lighthouse on the top of the cliffs, whitewashed and standing sentinel. It seems like the sort of thing that Billie would find both incredibly corny but still snap a photo of to show Emily later. Her hands tighten on the wheel, and Alexi pauses in her cleanup of the breakfast detritus to glance over, brows raised.

“Hey,” she says, “Are you okay?”

Emily nods, and they’re at the top of the hill, looking down, however briefly, from the best vantage point they’ll have on the island. The town is spread out below them, huddled next to or on the main street, the houses further than a block or two it in worsening condition dependent on distance.

They descend down onto the main street, and the houses and shops rise up to eclipse their view of the sky. There isn’t even a stoplight along the stretch, and all the cars they pass, when they pass them, are at least ten years old and parked on the side streets. It’s the sort of place that the recession should have killed off, if not the invention of commercial fishing, but it looks just like any other pretty little New England town, surviving off of tourism and sheer Puritan-descended stubbornness. But it’s the off-season, the storm shutters closed tight on the second stories, several stores sporting ‘CLOSED FOR THE SEASON’ signs in their windows.

“Motel’s off the next block,” Alexi says, and Emily makes the turn, dutiful.

Motel is too strong a word for the place. It’s more of a bed and breakfast, and if Emily had her way, they’d spend the nights on the mainland. But, as Alexi had reminded her, the Red Camellia was cheap, and there was the angle of patronizing local businesses, scrounging up some goodwill. Alexi hops out as soon as she’s parked, the only other occupant of the lot behind the two-story Victorian a rusting pickup. Emily goes for their bags as Alexi, holding the coffee cup stuffed full of trash, finds no place to toss it, and tucks it back into the car, glancing back at Emily as she does so.

It’s Alexi who goes in first. With her easy smile and protective coating of freckles, she’s the sunshine to Emily’s dark looks and severe bun. She still laughs at every Scully joke that anyone makes, but she’s got the better interview technique even if Emily consistently outshoots her. Pleased enough when they ended up on the same squad, she was even more happy— though that’s far from the right emotion— when Alexi had offered to come with her for this particular adventure.

There’s no one at the little front desk. Emily despairs at the pegboard not three feet behind it, the lines of keys hanging above room numbers. The local PD (where ‘local’ means half an hour away, plus ferry) had done a cursory investigation when Billie’s disappearance had first been noted. The owner had denied knowledge of anything suspicious; the police had checked for blood or her belongings— neither— and the case had been bumped back to Billie’s own coworkers.

Alexi dings the little bell, and Emily turns to look out the window, under the edge of the lacy curtains.

“I think I saw a coffee shop back in town,” Alexi says, casually. She checks at her cuff, then back to Emily— “I could use another cup.”

“Sure,” Emily says, and turns back, just as a woman comes out of the back. Before Emily can glare at the woman and get off to the wrong start, Alexi introduces herself and books them a room for the next week. The gossip will spread fast. Billie had made no secret of why she was here when she visited, and this isn’t the season for undercover work in so small a town.

“ _Twin beds_?” asks the woman, squinting at Alexi. That brings Emily back into the conversation, ready to cut in.

“Please,” recovers Alexi, and the woman gives them both a hard stare before she reaches for the key marked ‘6’, and drops it into Alexi’s hand and takes the card she offers in exchange. Slowly, the woman begins to write down the numbers. Emily fights the urge to comment, and Alexi wordlessly offers her the key.

“I want the bed closest to the alarm clock,” she says, and Emily nods, mute, taking both the bags.

The stairs groan as Emily takes them, two at a time, to the second floor. The number on the door is on a wooden plaque, and she puts down the bags to unlock the door, pushing it open slowly.

The smell of mothballs and old wood is instant, as are her thoughts of Billie. 

This wasn’t where she’d stayed. Emily would have said something if they’d been given room three, as much as it would have made their own investigation easier. Hell, she might have said something if they had anything on the first floor.

The room is standard enough. All frills and faux-Victorian aesthetic, sun-bleached and the nearly familiar scent of dollar store furniture polish over the mothballs. Emily notes with disappointment the lack of blankets on the bed or the telltale clanking of a radiator. She’ll survive; toss her windbreaker over the foot of the bed or bully Alexi into loaning her a sweater.

The bathroom isn’t much nicer. There is a clawfoot tub, and a shower head from approximately the same era. Emily tests the hot water via the sink, and after a rusty initial splash, it runs clean and lawsuit-worthy hot. At least there’s that, to brighten the future as much as the pull chain toilet dampens it. It’s hardly the worst place to spend a night. She can see how it would be charming in the summer.

She hears the door close and glances out to see Alexi entering the room.

“Do you still want coffee?”

Ten minutes later, once Alexi has unpacked and Emily has done nothing of the sort, they crunch across the gravel driveway up toward the main street. Emily would be jealous of Alexi’s good mood, her hands-in-pockets ease, but instead she yanks her sunglasses from her jacket pocket and squints accusingly at the sun, already nearly halfway across the sky, and pops the collar of her coat to block some of the wind.

“It’ll be dark by five,” says Alexi, very helpfully.

“We’ll get up early tomorrow to make up for it,” Emily replies. The coffee shop— really, more of a diner— is three storefronts down from where they started, all closed. At least there’s movement; as she goes to reach for the door, it’s opened from the inside by a local, who is left staring at Emily and Alexi. The man’s t-shirt proclaims FIREHOUSE CLAMBAKE 2008 and Emily’s manners kick in before she can wonder if she somehow missed a firehouse on the way in. She steps forward and holds the door for him, nods her head when he dribbles out his thanks, and keeps holding it until Alexi catches on and breezes in.

They really shouldn’t have worried about town gossip needing to let the locals know they were back in town. Two women in black suits, big black SUV, coming into town not a week after Agent Billie Lurk went missing couldn’t be anything _other_ than feds.

Kill them with kindness, Emily supposes, which is better than giving into possibly unfounded suspicion and flooding the town with law enforcement until someone bends and says something. If Billie had more friends, been more political, maybe she would have warranted that high profile response. Everyone else is sure she ran into trouble somewhere on her way back, her car last caught on tape near the New Hampshire border.

Alexi orders two cups of coffee and stuffs a tip into the jar. The woman working the register pours them from a pot down to the dregs. She takes her cup and lets Alexi start the mindless chatter, asking about lunch specials and how long the woman has worked here. Emily guesses ‘forever’, and turns away to doctor her coffee.

She rips open three packets at once and upends them into her cup, and reaches without looking for the milk carton.

Emily yanks her hand back when she touches someone else.

“Please,” the young man says, and makes his point by gesturing with a roll of his wrist at the carton. “Go ahead.”

“Thank you,” she says, declining to play at politeness and shuffle through ‘no, you’s. She pours until it’s the color of toffee and near overflowing, and then takes a sip. She’ll be filtering it through her teeth, _how long has it been brewing_ , but the caffeine will file the rough edges off her personality.

It takes her a moment to realize the young man hasn’t reached for the milk, and she recognizes, with what might even be guilt, that it’s still in front of her.

“Sorry,” she says, and nudges it back over to the other side of the counter.

She needs to get control of herself. Concern for Billie isn’t justification for being a jackass, and it won’t help Emily find her.

“You needed it,” he demurs. He has long eyelashes for a man, and a build like he’s suffering from consumption. Thematic, considering the general aesthetic of the town. But the worn suit jacket— patched at the elbows and wearing thin on the points of the lapels— and the dark jeans scream hipster, even as the collared white shirt pulls back her judgment. A college student, home for the holidays? No, she reassesses, too old for that. The half-starved look makes him look vulnerable and younger the same way big eyes make stuffed animals cute.

He has a lighter hand with the pour than she does. Doesn’t dump in sugar. Stirs, taps the spoon twice on the rim, and snaps on the lid before putting the spoon in the dirty utensil tin. He smiles at her before he leaves, too, and Emily takes that as her cue to wander back to Alexi, but not before noticing that a hush falls over the tables he passes on the way out, everyone doing a very good job of not looking at him. Odd. She files it away for later.

Alexi is still in conversation with the woman when she drifts back.

“Emily,” she says, mid-sentence, “they have spaghetti and meatballs on Tuesday nights, handmade pasta, Armanda was just telling me, we have to stop by before we go,” to which Emily replies, “That sounds wonderful,” and lets the sugar coax some humanity out of her.

She matches Alexi’s cheerful wave goodbye with a smile, and they slip out of the diner and back onto the main sidewalk. 

“Is that how you want to do this?” Alexi asks, once they’re a few doors down. “Question locals in the hope one of them will spontaneously confess? Sulk and hope it’s intimidating?”

“No,” Emily says. She takes a drink of the coffee, grimaces, and then meets Alexi’s gaze. As always, the other woman is steady. Solid.

“We both know she never left the island, no matter what they say about the car,” Alexi says. “We can handle this like we’re looking for information or like we’re looking for a body, but you need to decide.”

Somehow, they had managed to avoid this on the drive here. They had gone over the details of the case, every detail, from Billie’s original reasons for coming to the island to the last texts she’d sent, but somehow they had avoided discussing what this was. Everyone back south considered it a goose chase, might see a drowned body and call it a suicide, but Emily knew that Billie needed her, and like hell was she going to let her go quietly.

“We’ll split up,” she said. “Head up the road, back the way we came. Start familiarizing yourself with faces— I want to know if someone keeps showing up. We’ll meet back at the hotel in an hour. Tomorrow we’ll search the beaches.”

Alexi nods once, sharp, and she even smiles before she turns.

“Cheer up,” she says. “We’ll find her.”


	2. Day Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has left comments and kudos so far! I am fueled by it.

President Euhorn Kaldwin had a difficult political legacy. On one hand, he’d risen from relative political obscurity to become a beloved senator, then a two-term president with whom the nation mourned when his wife, Beatrix, died unexpectedly, three years into her tenure as First Lady. On the other hand, two years after his death, his daughter and senatorial hopeful, Jessamine Kaldwin, had announced the existence of her half-sister, whose mother was one of Euhorn’s former interns.

Emily had bounced between people who saw her mother or her grandfather when they saw her. Maybe that had been why she’d rejected public office, but not public service. Auntie Delilah still despaired that she did governmental work at all, even as Auntie Breanna argued that there was value in the humility of it. But starting at Quantico, during her training, the favoritism and disdain alike for and from her name had melted away against exhaustion, physical and mental. And in it, she’d found both peace and purpose.

Agent Lurk had mentored Emily from not-quite day one but nearly, pulling her from a future of white-collar crime and seized paperwork to the reality of organized crime. Tight-lipped about her own past, Emily had ended up fascinated, following Billie like a duckling. Nearly a decade later, they were more colleagues than mentor-and-student.

Still, the affection lingered. Billie had never once hesitated to have her back, argued for her, trained her, taught her to politic despite Billie’s own disinclination for it. She didn’t just owe Billie— it went beyond that. She’d have done far more than come up to bumfuck nowhere to find her.

The shrill beeping of the alarm is unfamiliar, and she jerks awake instantly. Across the room, she hears rustling, and moments later, Alexi’s hand slaps down on the clock to turn off the alarm. Emily swings out of bed, feet on the freezing floor, and makes for the bathroom to pee and splash water on her face. She wakes quickly, has to, and moves quickly once she’s up, but it doesn’t mean she likes it.

She yields the bathroom to Alexi once her face is on and her hair up, and dresses with mute efficiency.

“Game plan?” she says, and Alexi sticks her head out of the bathroom, toothbrush in her mouth to reply.

“Breakfast,” she says. “Then the beach. East side’s all cliffs—west has the beach, two and a half miles. We can walk it in an hour. By then we should hear back about the car.”

“Sounds good,” Emily says. Billie _was_ here. She would have left some sign, some trace—and Emily would find it, and follow the trail to the end, no matter what. 

Their second day goes better than the first, for certain values of better. Fortified by coffee and by knowledge of yesterday’s fruitless wandering through the town but with a better understanding of the layout, they stop down to the beach and Emily begins to suspect that they’ll earn nothing more than shoes full of sand and cricks in their necks from staring up the cliffs that border nearly the whole cove. 

The only way down to the beach is a gently sloping dune—‘gentle sloping’ only in comparison to ‘sheer cliff face’—dressed with a boardwalk of old, sandblasted wood that leads one down onto a wide, flat beach of a few acres. It’s far longer than wider, and Emily supposes that the waves beat on the cliffs themselves during the storms. 

She doesn’t know what she’s looking for, exactly, and so she just walks. Maybe Alexi’s just indulging her—maybe this whole excursion is an indulgence, a gentle way to acclimate Emily to Billie’s death. 

“You know what we need,” Alexi pipes up from behind her. Emily kicks at a scrap of dried seaweed encrusted with mussel shells. She plays along. 

“What?”

“Metal detector,” Alexi says, and Emily does not turn back or laugh. 

“We would find fishhooks and pop tabs,” she says. She squints at the horizon, the rolling ocean. 

“Maybe,” Alexi says. “I did my reading— lots of smuggling on the island back during Prohibition. Liquor brought down from Canada, brought the bottles up to town through tunnels, then onto the mainland.” 

“Maybe we’ll find some seaglass,” Emily amends. Still, she keeps near the cliffs, and away from the water. “We don’t know where the tunnels are, do we?”

“Nope,” Alexi says. 

“Maybe they’re still being used,” she ventures. It was improbable, but there had been weirder drug schemes. There wasn’t anywhere on the island to land a plane, but if they were coming down from Canada by boat—a little money could go a long way in this town. And if Billie had stumbled into something (though Billie didn’t stumble) well, that was a better theory than any other theory she had so far. It cast light on the behavior of the townsfolk. 

It was better than her vanishing.

They were at the edge of the beach, now. The sand gave up entirely, and water met the cliff instead, cutting them off. Emily keeps away from the wet sand, and instead reaches out to touch the cliff, working her way back inland, rolling over what few details she did have. Did she want to pursue the drug angle, call in for more information, see if they could dig up anything about rumrunners in the twenties.

The soft crunch of sand underfoot changes, a shift in texture, and she stops walking.

“Em?” Alexi says, and Emily glances down. 

“A shell,” she says, but she lifts her foot, kicks away the sand. She might as well get herself a souvenir. 

It isn’t a shell. It’s hard rubber, sand-encrusted, rectangular, and Emily drops to her knees, digging it out. It’s not large, so it’s not hard, and Emily stares at the phone, disbelieving, before she picks it up and turns to Alexi.

“Is it—” 

The case is heavy-duty, waterproof, but even that wouldn’t keep the phone from running out of battery. Emily presses the buttons, fusses, and the screen stays dead.

“Back to the motel,” she says, and wishes she had a bag. She digs a napkin left over from breakfast out of her pocket, and wraps the phone in that instead. She tucks it inside her jacket pocket, no thought about the sand that will now live there no matter how many times it gets dry cleaned. She’s got a charger back in the room, and immediately turns back the way they came, marching through the sand with a single minded sort of determination. 

She can hear Alexi crunching along behind her, hurrying to catch up.

“That’s not her phone,” Alexi says. 

“Of course it’s her phone,” Emily says. “And I’ll prove it to you when we get back and I can charge it.”

Alexi shakes her head, her hands jammed in her pockets. “How long has she been missing, Emily? And the tide didn’t sweep it out?”

Emily waves it off. “Sometimes we get lucky. And it’s been raining,” like that explained anything. But the other woman lets it go and they make it back in one piece, the woman at the front desk glaring at them as they track wet footprints through the lobby. Luckily, the rain had washed the sand off on the way back.

The case covered the charging port, so luckily Emily doesn’t have to swab out sand with a qtip. Alexi slips into the bathroom, returning with a towel she uses to dry off her hair. After thirty seconds of anticipatory staring, a familiar logo lights up the black screen, and Emily sighs with relief. Alexi says nothing, even as Emily swipes the screen up, turning off the cellular connection as quickly as possible. Then she guesses the passcode, hoping Billie was as stubborn with technology as she was with everything else.

The phone snaps to the home screen.

“They didn’t wipe it remotely?” Alexi asks, coming to look over Emily’s shoulder.

“The signal never reached it,” Emily says. “So it lost battery before she was reported missing, and since I kept it from connecting…”

Alexi gives her a look, but she shrugs, swiping into the settings menu and checking the app usage data.

“Look,” she says, and taps the screen. “There.”

“The flashlight drained the battery?” Alexi asks, peering down.

“So Billie was using it when she dropped the phone on the beach, or she’d been using it often that day,” Emily surmises, please that the evidence matched her conclusion. She sets the phone back down after turning the cellular data back on. Once it reconnected, IT would get a ping, but Emily already has the information she wants. Just as she suspected, the screen only stays on a few seconds more once it has what passes for a strong signal out here before it blinks out, rebooting. 

“I’ll make the call,” Emily says. “And then we’ll get something to eat.”

She dials Mortimer Ramsey with an uncharacteristic amount of reluctance she used to have only for accompanying her mother to parties when she was younger, born of too-tight too-shiny shoes and the feeling of being exhibited, as much as her mother tried to shield her from it. She knows exactly how the call will go, Ramsey knows exactly what he'll will say, but she still presses call and waits for Ramsey to pick up. Alexi leans forward, already listening intently.

“Sir,” she says, and Ramsey starts off.

“So, you found her phone. Excellent job. You were right. But you need to come back.”

Despite knowing how futile it is, Emily presents her argument anyway. “Sir, Agent Mayhew and I are already on site, we have as much of a rapport with the locals as we’re likely to get,” and then she’s cut off.

“Listen,” Ramsey says, “There’s probably something else going on here. We got the forensics back from her car, and it was clean. No blood. Before, we couldn’t throw resources at a black hole, but the phone’s something. You’ve got other cases, Kaldwin. A few days is one thing. Let someone with experience go in, take over for you. We had someone look into the drug smuggling angle Mayhew suggested. If that’s what Billie was wrapped up in, it’s more serious than the two of you can handle, and your mother,” at this, Alexi pinches her eyes closed, and Emily resists the urge to cut Ramsey off. “—would have us drawn and quartered in front of Congress if you got hurt doing something stupid.”

“Understood,” Emily says. The rain ricochets off the window, and Emily turns her back to it.

“Drive back tomorrow,” Ramsey says. “We’ll review the data off the cellphone together. You were right. There’s something here.”

“Thank you, sir,” Emily says. She even manages to pitch her tone in the appropriately flattered register. 

Ramsey hangs up, and Emily puts the phone down, staring at the dark screen.

“They care now,” Alexi points out, and Emily sighs.

“I feel like we’re so close,” she says.

“Tell Ramsey tomorrow in person.” Alexi is being reasonable, and a good employee. 

“I wish…” Emily starts, and trails off. Alexi takes the phone and plugs it in to charge before laying back down.

“That everyone cared as much as you?” Emily shoots her a look. Alexi doesn’t even crack a smile. “We’ll be in front of him tomorrow, both of us. I promise I’ll help you convince him.”

“Thanks,” Emily says, and sat down heavily on her own bed. It would have to be enough.

“Don’t mope,” Alexi says, standing suddenly. “Let’s get something to eat. The locals can stare at us again.”

“Ugh,” Emily says, but rolls out of bed, swiping her hair behind her ear.

They end up at the diner again, walking hurriedly through the rain. Alexi goes to order and Emily stands around again, hands in pockets, a puddle collecting under her. If she didn’t know better, she would say the crowd hadn’t changed. The young man isn’t there to make witty comments, but in the middle of looking over the dining room, she makes eye contact with another man, and feels a sinking horror as he pushes his chair back. She knows it in her bones that it’s going to be another incident of local color, and she hopes desperately that Alexi will finish with the order and they can retreat before he walks over, napkin still tucked in his collar.

“Agent Kaldwin,” the man says, and Emily nods. 

“I’m Mayor Shan Yun,” he says, and when he offers his hand, Emily shakes it. The town had seemed extremely rural. Maybe this man was the opposite of a snowbird. He was too young to have retired here for the inexpensive living. Interestingly, no one was staring at them while they spoke. 

“How are you finding the town?” he asks. “We were all so disappointed to hear about the ugliness of the disappearance of that poor woman.”

Emily’s smile is tight. Alexi is handing the waitress cash; the register dings as it opens. 

“Quaint,” she says, “and useless as far as the investigation goes. We’re leaving tomorrow.”

Jun frowns.

“How sad!” he exclaims, and the waitress hands Alexi a bag. Emily nods, and Jun turns to watch her join them, plastic bag bumping against her calf. “Ma’am,” he says, and then turns back to Emily.

“You might want to hurry back,” he says. “The storm will be picking up soon.”


	3. Day Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments feed me. :V

The rain hasn’t stopped during the night. If anything, it had gotten worse, just like Jun had prophesied, and the wind had picked up. Still, inside the car, it is warm and dry. They roll up to the dock, watching the sea lash at the piers and the edge of the island.

There is no ferry.

“Back into town?” Alexi asks.

“Back into town,” Emily agrees grimly.

They stop for coffee again, wrapping their jackets tightly around themselves with crossed arms, Alexi’s braid flapping in the wind.

Out of pity, it’s Emily who goes to get the drinks, likely destroying whatever rapport Alexi has built with the tobacco-stained waitress. She moves in what seems like slow motion to pour the coffee into two styrofoam cups. The door jingles as it opens, letting in the wind and the rain and the mayor, his mustache unruffled. Emily takes the coffees and hands Alexi hers before the man spots them and, eyes wide, makes a beeline.

“Ladies,” he says, and Emily nods, reflexively. 

“The ferry,” Alexi says by way of explanation before conversation can get them there, and he sighs.

“I’m afraid the ferry won’t be running until the storm passes,” Jun says, his mustache drooping along with his face.

“By tomorrow,” Alexi tries, and Jun shrugs his shoulders.

“Who can tell! Why, several years ago, there was a nor'easter that kept mainlanders away for nearly a week.” 

The thought makes Emily nearly vibrate with annoyance.

“Most of the businesses have generators, so you ladies will be quite comfortable. Still, I feel I must apologize for the delay,” Jun says.

“We’ll be fine,” Emily says, and glances back to the front door, and the ominous puddle seeping in under it.

“I’ll get some food for the room,” Alexi says grimly, her fingers tight enough around the cup to bend the styrofoam. “Why don’t you see if we need anything else?”

Emily takes the dismissal gladly, more than willing to leave Alexi behind to peruse the slim dusty aisles of the diner’s grocery section. Out in the lashing rain, she doesn’t have to spend more time around Jun. 

She could view this as a positive. There might be clear days between now and when the ferry resumes, more time to look for Billie. But she is contrary enough to only want it if she had won it. Now, it just feels like being trapped.

“We’re leaving once the storm passes,” she admits. 

“Ah,” he says. “A shame.”

It’s curated, she realizes, and her assessment of him changes immediately. He’s so uncomfortable in his own skin, he wears the whole outfit like a costume. English major, she thinks. Old money, enough to run what has to be an unprofitable bookstore in a summer town. An outsider to the town, like her, even after living here for at least a year— the store certainly isn’t gleaming and new. The locals still aren’t completely comfortable with him, probably don’t even shop here. Maybe he’s writing a book— maybe it’s a book of poetry. More likely it’s a play, and he’ll stumble back into Boston or Westchester in however many years to fund its debut off-Broadway before sliding into a job writing for some magazine. 

While she makes her assessment, she doesn’t look at him, instead letting her fingers trail over the glossy covers of the new novels. The used books are all beach reads—she can see the tell-tale red and cracked spines of the murder mysteries, the lurid titles of the romances, detective novels and the occasional self-improvement non-fiction. All seem slightly waterlogged, even though they’re dry.

He slips past her and her half-hearted search through the new books, and plucks a volume for her, offering it back with one hand, the other still sliding along the titles.

“Moby Dick?” she asks, amused.

He shrugs, and slides it back in the empty place, the absence a missing tooth in a smile.

“I suppose Treasure Island is also unacceptable, Agent Kaldwin?”

“It is,” she says. Corvo had read it to her when she was a small girl. The delight of the novel was mainly in his reading of it, how he’d done different voices. But she _had_ liked it, and before he can guess again—maybe even pick something she had enjoyed, or would enjoy, she goes for the next shelf over, and pulls free a romance novel, dog-eared and two or three readings from falling apart.

“This one,” she says, and though he lingered with his fingers on another book, he pulled back and went to the register to ring her up.

“Fifty cents,” he says, and she pulls out her wallet to pay in change. While she digs, he slips a bookmark between the pages, and puts the book in a slim paper bag, folding over the top crisply, as careful if she’d bought a new-release hardcover.

“Thanks,” she says, and she drops the quarters into his outstretched hand.

“My pleasure,” he says, and her phone vibrates. Alexi’s texted her, and she tucks the bag under her arm while she checks the screen.

The bell jingles as she exits the shop. Alexi is across the street, bag of food in hand, and crosses the empty street without looking both ways.

“What’s that?” she asks, as they both turn back towards the hotel.

“Just a book,” Emily says. “Since there’s no television.”

“As if you’ll be doing anything tonight beside work,” Alexi points out, and Emily has to agree with her on that. If they hadn’t bagged Billie’s phone for evidence, Emily would be fussing with it, trying to see what she could get off of it despite the wipe, even if it would be in better hands if she left it alone. 

“I have to take a break sometime,” she says and Alexi barks out a laugh.

Back in the musty hotel room, Alexi calls first shower right around the same time the thunder and lightning starts up and the storm really gets going, dumping water down by the bucketful. 

Because Alexi is right and also because she can’t see Emily right now, she checks her work email on her own phone. Ramsey has forwarded her the lab results from the car; no recoverable DNA and no blood. She considers, however briefly, the logistics of ordering a helicopter to pick them off and take them away, of heeding good advice. The fantasy lasts as long as sugar in her mouth.

Emily sits on her bed to wait her turn, reaching for the bag, nicking a sandwich from the provision pile while she’s at it. She unfolds the paper bag with as much care as the man had closed it, and pulls out the book. The postcard he’d tucked between the pages falls to the floor, and Emily bends to pick it up.

It’s vintage, by Emily’s guess turn of the century. WISH YOU WERE HERE painted in cursive over a shot of the beach. Little people are dotted across the sand, tiny umbrellas dark dots along the grey sand. The geography of the island is becoming familiar to her—she knows where this photograph is taken, somehow, the ghost of familiarity, but something is off. She struggles for the answer, staring down at the picture.

The adrenaline hits her before she understands the reason for it, but as she marks the particular jut of the cliffs, the sharp overhang, Emily realizes that the postcard shows where she and Alexi found Billie’s phone the day before. 

A coincidence. 

She flips the card over. In a spidery hand but fresh ink, she reads, ‘ _The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run_.’

Emily squints at the words, unable to place them, and scoffs. It’s one more weird thing in a weird town, and if she had a better sense of the town, she would know if her hackles were up because there was genuine danger, or if Billie’s disappearance was wearing down her judgement. 

“What’s that?” Alexi asks, toweling off her hair. Emily has been so lost in her woolgathering that she had missed the door opening. By now, the rain is beating so hard against the windows that she couldn’t have caught the water stopping either.

“Postcard,” Emily says, and offers it. Alexi takes it, squinting down at the picture. She doesn’t flip it, but she does keep looking for long enough that Emily’s about to say something. Alexi puts it down on the bed before she can, tapping the curve of the overhang.

“Look at that,” Alexi says, and Emily squints down at the sepia picture. 

“What,” she says, and then she looks at the cliff again. There’s a dark clef low in the rocks that Emily doesn’t remember seeing when they were there before, but the picture’s so grainy that Emily can’t be sure, and it’s hard to figure out where it would be. The beach seems longer, and then Emily realizes—

“Low tide,” she breathes, and Alexi grins.

“Then we were there—” she starts, and Alexi has her own phone up, checking.

“Right before high tide.”

“Do you think it’s an entrance to the smuggling tunnels?” Emily asks.

“Probably,” Alexi says. 

Emily feels the relief of a break, and then reaches for Alexi’s phone, for the tide schedule she’s got up. Alexi keeps it out of reach, stepping back.

“It’s coming on low tide now, isn’t it?”

“Yep,” Alexi says, and Emily sighs.

“Tomorrow, when we’ve got daylight.”

“Tomorrow,” she agrees.

She’s already modifying her theories, considering what she wants to say to Ramsey. Billie was there, they know that from the phone, probably inside the tunnels, ergo the flashlight. But where had she gone _next_ , and why hadn’t the phone gotten soaked, exposed to the elements for days. Even with the waterproof case, it should have suffered some damage besides sand in the headphone jack. She doesn’t realize she’s holding the postcard, tapping the corner against the bed until she’s speaking again.

“I want to go look at Billie’s room,” Emily says, resolute.

“Cops didn’t find anything,” Alexi challenges. She’s braiding her hair, still wet. Emily shrugs.

Alexi grins.

“I’ll put my shoes on.”

They’re quiet as they slip out of their room and head downstairs. Room three’s lock is easy to pick, pathetically simple. Alexi keeps watch.

The door eases open without a sound, and the two of them slip inside, closing the door behind them. 

It’s so similar to their own, same decorating style, same smell. A queen bed, instead of two twins, set atop a riotous rag rug, and the bedskirt is an explosion of ruffles. Emily steps forward, walking along the side of the bed. Billie had been here, slept in the room, looked at what Emily was looking at now. 

It is unlikely that being in the room would give her any particular insight, but it settles something in her to be here, to see no signs of distress, even hastily covered ones. A layer of dust did nothing but accent what _had_ been disturbed. 

Emily turns towards the bathroom, perhaps to look for hiding spots where Billie could have stashed something, and then stops. She shifts her weight from her toes to her heel, feeling the floor shift, and then drops to her knees on the hardwood floor.

Alexi, busy peering out between the blinds, frowns at her.

Emily offers no explanation, instead pulling back the rug.

The trapdoor isn’t new; the boards fit perfectly and are just as aged and worn as the rest of the floor. There’s no handle to disturb the lay of the rug, just a carved hole. 

She glances up at Alexi, her heart beating hard.

“Well, shit,” Alexi says, speaking low. “If it’s just down to the cellar…”

“Probably,” Emily says. She hooks her fingernails in the crack, and tries to lift the door. No use.

Wordless, Alexi hands her a folding knife she pulled from god knows where, and Corvo’s voice echoes in her head, scolding her for not having hers, but Emily levers the blade between into the space and gets it high enough to get her fingers under it, lifting the heavy door. 

The stale air smells like damp rock and it’s cold enough to drop the temperature in the room by a few degrees. Emily uses the light from her own phone to peer down into the hole, and spots a metal ladder in relatively good condition anchored on the supports of the house itself. She can see the bottom, maybe about eight feet down, a dirt floor, and it probably is just the cellar. She puts her phone into her brassiere, light facing out, and begins to ease herself into the hole, feet finding the rungs of the ladder with little effort.

In all honesty, she could probably drop down, but better be careful. 

She looks back up at Alexi.

“Are you coming?” she asks.

“Someone has to close the door after you,” Alexi says, already sitting down, checking the lacing of her boots. “And you should probably use an actual flashlight.”

“You don’t want to wait until tomorrow?” Emily asks.

Dry, Alexi points out, “It’s low tide right now.”

She puts the phone with the flashlight on into the front pocket of her shirt and descends the ladder slowly. The rungs are cold under her hands but free of rust and alarming creaks. She descends fifty feet by her estimation into the dark, step after step. The air, she notes, isn’t stale, but it does reek of salt and seaweed.

At the bottom, she thumps the ladder twice, and waits for Alexi to climb down.

While she waits, she swings the light out in an arc. The tunnel appears to be carved through the same bedrock that makes up the cliffs and most of the island. Down the tunnel, she can see stalagmites and evidence that someone just made use of natural formations past a certain point. She waits for Alexi to thump down before she begins to walk forward. The ceiling is a few feet above her head, and the footing in the tunnel itself is easy.

Both of them keep quiet as they walk, their faces the same grim mask. The tunnel meanders downwards, and they pass other caverns, but the path under their feet is too precise and smooth to be anything but human made. There’s even a set of steps when it would be otherwise too steep.

What breaks the silence isn’t Alexi speaking, but an odd whooshing, and light from a source that isn’t Emily’s phone. She switches it off and puts it back in her pocket, and Alexi edges closer as they come to an end. The space above their heads opens up, and sand crunches underfoot. Beyond the opening of the cave is the ocean, the repetitive lull of the tides making the sound. 

They stand on the beach they walked earlier in the morning. In a few hours, when the tide rises, the little cave will be filled with water.

“Fuck,” Emily says, and Alexi grunts in answer behind her.

“I hate,” Alexi says, “to be the sensible one, but I suggest we go back to the room, email Ramsey, and sit tight.”

“You’re right,” Emily says. She’s completely, absolutely right, but Emily can’t stop staring out at the beach where she’d found Billie’s phone. Alexi switches on her own actual flashlight, and Emily hears her crunch through the sand, and then hiss her next breath.

“Turn around,” Alexi says, and Emily does so, slowly, swinging out the beam of her phone’s light. On the other end of the cavern, opposite from their little path, is a carven staircase, wide enough to fit four or five abreast. It disappears into the rock in a gaping black void. 

“No,” Emily says, and Alexi says, “Uh-huh,” and they walk quickly back to their path, the sand caught in their shoes grinding against the rock with each step. 

They make good time back to the room, even if Alexi goes first, and Emily has to deal with the cold metal ladder now covered in sand. She replaces the rug while Alexi checks the hallway. The front desk woman is nowhere to be seen, and they make it back to their room from room three without incident. The hallways are dark. While they were in the tunnels, the island must have lost power.

Emily has her phone out the moment Alexi closes the door. Her signal is too poor for a call, but she begins typing the most important points into an email. Alexi starts to pace, takes off her boots, and then returns to it, her mouth set in a hard line.

The knock startles them both. Emily thumbs the screen back to darkness. Alexi, closer to the door, calls out, “Hello?”

“Got some candles,” the woman says, and they both relax. Emily jerks her chin at the door and Alexi opens it to reveal the front desk woman. She’s got a candle in one hand and a tray in the other. Alexi takes it when she jams it in front of her. “Coffee too,” the woman says, and Emily can smell the cheap instant stuff from here. She’ll take it.

“Thanks,” Emily says, and the woman waves it off. 

“Got a kettle on the fire downstairs,” she says gruffly. “Come down if you want more.”

Alexi sets the tray down on the bedside table, knocking Emily’s book out of the way. There’s a box of matches and a few fat, fragrant tapers alongside two mugs of steaming coffee. Emily takes hers immediately and takes a swig. It’s hot, and the beach was freezing, and she’s _afraid_ in a very justifiable way. Alexi doesn’t take long before following suit, and then helping Emily by lighting a match she can light the tapers from.

“Beeswax,” Emily says. Her fingernail makes a dainty crescent in the soft wax. “Mother insisted on them in the house. Hates paraffin.”

“Does she know you’re here?” Alexi asks. 

“Not specifically,” Emily says. She lights the next candle off the last, and jams both in the candlesticks on the dresser. Alexi has finished her coffee and lays on her bed, groaning theatrically as her head hits the pillow. Emily sets the candles down on the nightstand before sitting on her own bed. 

Picking up the book from where it fell onto the floor, she swings her legs up onto the bed and tries to read it. She’ll check her phone every half hour to see if she has enough service to send the message to Ramsey. Until then, she needs to kill time. The pieces will come together if she doesn't force them.

Her head aches, and she feels nauseous, but she finishes off her coffee to ward off the chill in her fingertips, probably from the ladder.

She stares at the flame of the candle, and tries to put everything together. There are so many pieces in this town, in this case, and yet..

“Em?” Alexi says, and she turns to look at her partner, who squints into the middle distance. Emily tries to stand, but she feels suddenly, viciously dizzy, and grips the bedspread. 

As she begins to recognize the textbooks signs of a rohypnol dosage, she notices that her and Alexi’s boots, left by the door, are caked with sand on the soles, sand that had probably left a trail from room three back to theirs.

The coffee mugs sit empty on the nightstand.


End file.
